Date

Agriculture Research Articles

Coffee (Coffea spp.) is one of the world's most valuable agricultural export commodities produced by small-scale farmers. Its germplasm, which holds useful traits for crop improvement, has traditionally been conserved in field genebanks, which presents many challenges for conservation. New techniques of in vitro and cryopreservation have been developed to improve the long-term conservation of ...

This study investigates how gender affects sustainable livelihoods in terms of the impact on food and nutrition security in farm worker households. Gender variables play a crucial role in the well-being of households, especially for women and children. A case study of South African farms shows that female-headed households, although having less access to earned income, take better care of the ...

Improving the cooking and eating quality of grain has always been an important consideration in most rice (Oryza sativa L.) breeding programs. In this study, an established rice doubled-haploid (DH) population consisting of 219 lines from anther culture of the F1 of indica variety PSB Rc10 and japonica variety Nipponbare was used to identify the quantitative trait loci (QTL) for amylose content ...

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is a traditional crop in many Spanish regions. A major collection of Spanish common bean landraces is maintained at the National Genebank in the Center for Plant Genetic Resources (CRF), Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain. A core collection including 200 common bean accessions was established from the CRF collection. We sought to analyze the genetic diversity of ...

Development of core collections is an effective tool to extensively characterize large germplasm collections, and the use of a mini-core subsampling strategy further increases the effectiveness of genetic diversity analysis at detailed phenotype and molecular levels. We report the formation of a mini-core subset containing 217 entries derived from 1794 core entries representing the genetic ...

About the Pacific Institute The Pacific Institute is one of the world’s leading independent nonprofits conducting research and advocacy to create a healthier planet and sustainable communities. Based in Oakland, California, we conduct interdisciplinary research and partner with stakeholders to produce solutions that advance environmental protection, economic development, and social equity—in ...

In September 2007, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Laguna, the Philippines, brought together some 41 experts from agricultural research institutes from around the world for three days. They were brought together by the realization that biofuel production had doubled in the previous five years and was likely to double in the next five. While the US and Brazil produced 90% of ...

Developing a core collection that represents the diversity of entire collection is an efficient approach to enhance the use of germplasm in crop improvement. Core collections are dynamic and need to be revised when additional germplasm and information become available. In the present study, the pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] core collection, consisting of 1600 accessions selected ...

Most commercial cultivars of rice (Oryza sativa L.) are susceptible to sheath blight (SB), a devastating fungal disease causing significant losses in grain yield and quality. There are limited sources of genetic resistance adapted to U.S. growing conditions, and no commercial long grain cultivar of rice is currently available in the United States with a high level of SB resistance. Sheath blight ...

A random utility approach is used to estimate the logit equations which indicate what factors affect the likelihood of consumption of non-Genetically Modified (GM) and GM foods and whether or not consumers are willing to pay a premium for non-GM/GM foods. Ceteris paribus, as the price difference between non-GM and GM foods rises, people are more likely to consume GM foods. The likelihood of GM ...

A challenge for African countries is how to integrate new sources of knowledge on plant genetics with knowledge from farmer practice to help improve food security. This paper considers the knowledge content of farmer seed systems in the light of a distinction drawn in artificial intelligence research between supervised and unsupervised learning. Supervised learning applied to seed systems ...

Information on the contribution of plant breeding to changes in yields and other agronomic traits is useful for optimizing selection gains; thus, this study aimed to determine the contribution of Texas rice (Oryza sativa L.) breeding to changes in cultivars released during the 48 yr since the release of ‘Bluebonnet’ in 1944. Twenty-three cultivars were evaluated in three environments and two N ...

US aquaculture is one of the fastest growing segments of US agriculture; however, as aquaculture expands, a number of environmental, regulatory, and socioeconomic concerns threaten to constrain further development of the industry. This presents unique challenges to the Sea Grant network. Although Sea Grant encourages the commercial development of aquaculture, it must work with local communities ...

This paper builds on the outcomes of a state-of-the-art review of research for the European research project MULTAGRI, with a particular focus on the conceptualisation of Multifunctional Agriculture (MFA) from a 'supply side' perspective. It argues that a consistent and satisfactory conceptual framework for studying the supply of MFA at farm and territorial level is still largely lacking and ...

A status-quo analysis of the way the question of the multifunctionality of agriculture and of rural space is dealt with in policy evaluation is given. Focus is on conceptual frameworks, tools and methods. The paper builds on a review of policy evaluation practice and experiences in six different EU member states and of a summative review for Central and Eastern European countries (CEE). It is ...

This last paper aims to summarise reflexions made in the preceding papers of this Special Issue. We will first show the common conclusions of the different reviews on multifunctionality, and discuss the global state-of-the-art: multifuntionality does not yet appear as a very stabilised concept, and its scientific use suffers from confusions with political discourses. We suggest therefore that ...

Research in agriculture has strongly focused on discipline-oriented, natural science-based approaches to increasing production with success measured by short-term, neoclassical economic evaluation. This strategy has contributed to impressive increases in food production over the last half century. Growing concerns include environmental impacts, changes in rural communities, and distribution of ...

Defra has pursued a cautious and step by step approach to the development of coexistence measures to allow genetically modified (GM) and conventional farming to work side by side when (as is widely expected) the go-ahead is given for the commercial introduction of GM crops in the UK. It published a wide-ranging consultation document on GM Coexistence measures as long ago as July 2006. The ...

As a soil scientist working for more than 25 years, I am very much concerned with soil protection and conservation. In this process, I started collecting information related to national soil policies of different countries. To my surprise I could not get a well defined national soil policy for any one of the developing country? A developing country can be defined as , that country which has a ...